2025 Lexus ES 350 Review: Calmness in a Sea of Aggro
Is the Lexus ES 350 a Good Luxury Sedan?
Despite its dated styling, the 2025 Lexus ES 350 makes an excellent case for the plush, comfortable and coddling luxury sedan — attributes many competitors have abandoned in favor of technology and sportiness.
How Does the Lexus ES 350 Compare With Other Luxury Sedans?
Softer, quieter and calmer than just about any other mid-size luxury sedan on the market, the ES 350 knows what its audience wants, and it delivers. There’s no pretense of lapping the Nurburgring in record time here, just cushy, sedate, cruiser-style pampering.
There was a time when a luxury car was meant to be soft. It didn’t need a suggestion of sportiness; there was no requirement for it be a sharp-handling, overpowered, technology-laden rocket ship that had to pass muster on tracks and canyon roads. It just had to be more comfortable, more quiet, more luxurious and more exclusive than a normal family vehicle. Somewhere along the way, though, that idea got lost as automakers started to deliver sports sedans along with sports coupes … then sporty SUVs and sporty everything else.
Despite having the word “sport” in its name, the 2025 Lexus ES 350 F Sport is not a sports sedan. It’s an old-school cruiser, a throwback to when “luxury” meant coddling and pampering occupants, not delivering three levels of electronically controlled suspension firmness and adjustable exhaust noises. This Lexus isn’t happiest being flogged on a back road; it’s much more at home cruising serenely down boulevards, commuting to the law firm or shuttling to a golf course. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that: The ES 350 is an old-school luxury sedan — maybe the last of a dying breed.
Related: Back to Black: 2025 Lexus ES Priced From $43,190, Black Line Special Edition Returns
How Much Does the 2025 Lexus ES Cost?
Lexus’ mid-size sedan sits between the smaller, sportier, rear-wheel–drive-based IS and the larger LS full-size sedan. It’s offered with a choice of three powertrains: a gas four-cylinder engine with standard all-wheel drive (ES 250), a gas V-6 with front-wheel drive (ES 350) and a gas-electric hybrid with FWD (ES 300h). The car also comes in several trim levels, adding more luxurious trimmings (Luxury and Ultra Luxury), sporty looks (F Sport Design) or sporty looks plus sporty suspension tuning (F Sport Handling). All prices below include a $1,295 destination fee:
- Base: $43,435
- F Sport Design: $48,020
- Luxury: $48,605
- Ultra Luxury: $52,325
- Base: $43,435
- F Sport Design: $48,020
- Luxury: $48,605
- F Sport Handling: $49,895
- Ultra Luxury: $52,325
- Base: $44,835
- F Sport Design: $49,220
- Luxury: $50,005
- F Sport Handling: $51,130
- Ultra Luxury: $53,725
That’s a long, long list of possible models, trims and configurations, but Lexus tends to bundle options into these trim levels, so very few stand-alone options are available. Also note that similar ES 250 and ES 350 variants are identically priced, so your choice there will come down to whether you want a FWD model with a more powerful V-6 or an AWD model with a more efficient four-cylinder. The hybrid ES 300h is a bit more expensive than the conventional gas-powered 250 and 350.
Styling Is No Longer Outrageous
When Lexus started using its “spindle-grille” look, most folks denounced it as odd and unappealing. The company has toned it down a bit over the years, while its competitors have taken their front-end styling in even odder directions (hello, BMW 3 and 4 Series). For whatever reason, the ES doesn’t look as bizarre and outrageous as it used to. It’s a clean look — swoopy and clearly inspired by the one truly gorgeous car in the Lexus lineup: the LC 500 coupe and convertible. The ES is related to the Toyota Camry, but Lexus stylists have done an excellent job differentiating it from its more pedestrian cousin; you wouldn’t know the two vehicles were related from a casual glance. Still, while the ES is no longer offensive to behold, it’s not distinctive anymore, either. That’s poised to change for the 2026 model year, however, as the ES receives a radical redesign that promises to make its styling controversial once again.
Adequately Powered
My test vehicle was a loaded ES 350 F Sport Handling with the big 3.5-liter V-6 and a special handling package meant to impart some sportiness and athleticism. In practice, it achieves neither of those things, but I ain’t mad about it.
Acceleration with the 302-horsepower V-6 is smooth and strong, moving this mid-size sedan through traffic with ease whether it’s powering its way onto a highway or loping along on a moderate-speed boulevard. It’s an example of using an old-school, non-turbocharged, large-displacement V-6 simply for the purpose of having a nice well of power to draw from. There’s no frenetic revving and no need for big downshifts from the eight-speed automatic transmission. The powertrain is just well matched to its application, and we’ll miss it when Lexus ditches it for more electrification in the next-generation ES: The redesigned lineup will offer gas-electric hybrid and all-electric powertrains. The current ES 350 is quiet, too, but that’s as much a feature of its copious sound insulation as it is engine refinement.
F Sport Looks, F It Handling
It’s the “Sport” moniker I object to with the ES — there’s nothing sporty going on in the handling department. The electronically controlled adaptive suspension offers a glass-smooth ride; it’s astonishingly isolated for a car this size, riding on 19-inch wheels and tires. It feels like a full-size limousine — like the bigger LS sedan — as far as ride and handling go. There’s not much feel or feedback from the steering wheel, and it doesn’t take much heft or effort to turn it, either, even when it’s in Sport or Sport+ mode to make full use of the car’s Adaptive Variable Suspension.
The brakes aren’t particularly grabby or firm, the suspension isn’t stiff or communicative, and there’s a decent amount of body roll in sweeping corners. This is definitely a cruiser, a highway touring car meant for eating up mile after mile of interstate with grace and serenity. Nobody purchases an ES thinking it’s going to be an entertaining sports sedan — the smaller IS capably fills that role for Lexus (for now). The ES F Sport is really more about looks than any substantive sporting ability, and while I think that’s a little disingenuous, you can’t deny the comfort and all-around pleasantness the ES delivers. Don’t ask the ES 350 F Sport Handling to dance and it won’t disappoint you.
Dated but Comfy Interior
The interior of the ES 350 F Sport Handling displays some of the racier looks in the lineup, with an available two-tone interior in black and white faux leather that looks a little out of place in a Lexus — and more than a little dated overall. From the gauges to the patterns and textures, it’s well built and high-quality, just rather stale.
One welcome holdout in the interior is the presence of actual physical buttons for things like the climate controls and other features. This won’t be the case in the next-generation ES, which will have more touch-based controls, so we’re going to enjoy them for now; you can’t beat managing your car’s features by feel alone, without having to look at the control itself, as you have to do with touch-based ones. Even the steering wheel is the old-school Lexus type, with more hard buttons instead of the latest touch-sensitive panels. It’s still a winner in my book.
There are some modern features in the 2025 ES, like an available 12.3-inch center touchscreen running the latest Lexus multimedia system, which is a reskinned version of the Toyota system. It works well enough, but it’s not exactly class-leading due to lacking some user-friendly features — like a home screen that can display multiple things at once. Thankfully, it offers wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto should you want to use something more familiar to you.
The ES 350 F Sport Handling does have the silly, mechanically moving gauge cluster you’ll also see in the IS sedan, which changes up the display depending on drive mode and whether or not you’ve selected adjustments using the steering-wheel controls. It’s cool for about 2 seconds, then you think about how a few years from now it’s likely to be a broken feature that will be expensive to replace.
Even so, the ES’ interior is really designed for comfort, despite its creative trim pieces. The seats are cushy instead of firm, with mild bolsters. The backseat is acceptable, but like the Camry, a low roofline makes getting in and out of the backseat a little challenging for bigger people. Overall, the cabin experience is one of luxurious isolation wrapped in questionable color schemes.
If I were buying an ES, however, I would not pick an F Sport Handling (or any F Sport) version. Given the ES is far more skewed toward comfort, the Ultra Luxury trim feels more in keeping with its mission.
Not Yet Overpriced
My loaded ES 350 F Sport Handling’s sticker price came to $56,850, including options and destination. In the pantheon of luxury sedans, that’s not bad at all. The ES is the size of a BMW 5 Series, it comes with a lot of standard equipment, and it offers comfort and ease of use that many competing luxury brands do not. It relishes in being a beacon of old-school calmness and comfort, not a sports sedan, and its buyers appreciate it for that. The next-generation ES will be a massive departure from what you see here, so if a comfortable, traditional-style mid-size luxury sedan is appealing to you, you should grab a ‘25 Lexus ES soon.
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